Mushroom season here starts many of us plan their "hunting" routes for mushrooms. You should have mosquito repellent, rubber boots, plasam and a basket. But the knife to cut the mushrooms, take not necessarily. After all, the idea that the mushrooms must be cut - pure delusion.

In childhood, walking for mushrooms accompanied by my grandparents, I constantly heard from them one and the same phrase: "Mushrooms in no event it is impossible to tear - only cut with a knife under the base". My question is, why is it necessary to do so, and not otherwise, followed one and the same reply: "or you will damage the mycelium, and next year at this place the mushroom is not grow up". Honestly, then these words seemed commonplace truth.

And only when I grew up and entered the biological faculty of Moscow state University, I realized that this rule is nothing other than... a very common misconception. Because actually the fungus still, tearing do you his hands or cut with a knife. Either way can cause serious damage to the underground part of the fungus and influence will appear or not its fruit body for the next year at the same location. However, let's do first things first.

The most mysterious for me in all this is how could encounter this error. Because, apparently, he is not one hundred years! Perhaps this is a false claim was born due to the fact that in ancient times people believed mushrooms plants. Because they do not run to and fro, like animals, and grows out of the ground and calmly standing still. What mushrooms cannot photosynthesize, like real plants, and metabolism is similar to that of the animals (they eat ready organic and store carbohydrates in the form of glycogen, and no starch), then anybody especially did not care.

Well, once the fungus is a plant that thought our ancestors, his fruit body is something of the stem, and the mycelium - a similar roots. That if you pull the grass root, it will not grow next year, and if you mow her scythe will grow, know of any rural resident. It is not excluded that this is why our great-grandfathers decided that in order to harvest mushrooms in the same place each year, to cut them, and not to tear.

However, this analogy is very wrong, because the fruit body of mushrooms from a group of records of Ascomycetes (Ascomycota, of them edible in our region are the lines and morels) and basidiomycetes (Basidiomycota, these include all other edible mushrooms) is not a stalk, but simply "stand", which are the organs of reproduction (that is, it is not appropriate to compare with flower or bump). And the underground part, that is the very mycelium, consisting of thin filaments or hyphal - this is the main body of the fungus.

And these SWFs have fungus billions, and old constantly die off and new ones are growing. It is difficult to believe that the white mycelium of the fungus, you just ripped off (or cut - does not matter) can take a whole hectares of forest! So, breaking off a few hundred hyphae, directly holding and feeding the fruit body, the fungus you do not damage - "Ranka" will instantly be delayed again grown threads mycelium.

By the way, sometimes spawn there are just huge. Did you know that the largest living thing in the world is a mushroom, and not the elephant, whale or Diplodocus? And this fungus is alive and well in the National Park Mahler in the blue mountains (Oregon, USA). It mycelium covers an area of 890 hectares, roughly the size 1220 football fields.



This fungus belongs to the species Armilaria ostoyae, also called honey fungus. Externally it is similar to ordinary honey fungus. Every year millions of fruit bodies of this giant appear on the trees and stumps Park - and it lasts for at least 2,400 years. And as much as you tore their hands or cut with knives - you will not be able to cause supergarbo no harm. However, this no one does, because Armilaria ostoyae belongs to the category of inedible fungi.

So, how many do not destroy the fruit bodies of white, brown and orange-cap boletus, they are still in the following year will rise again on the same places. But why is this happening? The fact that the fruit bodies formed from plexus end hyphae, "grow up" where many nutrients for fungus substances. And they are in abundance around of bushes and trees - all of the highest mushrooms make with them (or rather, with their roots) a kind of unions called microsemi.

In the process of education mycorrhiza hyphae spawn entwine root hairs, and sometimes even penetrate the thick roots. Because of this mushroom and herb share with each other different substances. Mushroom supplies the wood water and mineral elements, which he produces in those places where the root is reached. The plant, in its turn, provides its ally in carbohydrates, which are not found in the soil.

You know that time in the area of education mycorrhiza nutrients most of all, and the fruit bodies appear always there, what would you do - thwarted or cut off. So they stopped growing in their accustomed places, you need to cut down a tree and dig up the roots. Only then fungus, having lost the "free dining room", will look for another place for the formation of fruit bodies (and it will be in the region next mycorrhizal fungi).

Sometimes when nutrients in excess fruit bodies grow huge. So, two years ago, Chinese biologists found in Fujian province wood bracket-fungus whose fruit body is recognized as the largest in the world: its weight was 514 kg in volume caps, 524 thousand cubic centimeters. To break this fungus is impossible in principle, but in order to cut it requires no knives, and chainsaw - tissue the fungus was so sclerotiniaceae that his hardness was not inferior to the tissues of the tree on which he grew up.

And the largest edible fungus was found in Canada in 2007 Jean guy Richard. Huge fruit body circumference 2.64 metres and a weight of 22 kg belonged to raincoat Calvatia gigantean. In order not to damage the soft tissue, Richard't pulled it out of the ground, and carefully dug a garden spade.

And while it's unlikely we'll be able to find such a giant, do not be upset - mushroom season is just beginning. And most importantly, do not be upset if the path into the forest you will find that forget the knife - now we know that mushrooms can be cut off, but you can tear. And the harm they do no will not.